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Kelowna First Aid

Courses offered OFA level 1 equivalent WEFA , Standard First Aid, Child Care First Aid , Emegency First Aid at Kelowna First Aid Training Centers

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Kelowna First Aid

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First Aid Minor Wounds

kelowna first aid

First Aid

One of the first matters to address with minor wounds is cleansing the wound.^[3,8] Cleansing is important for incisions that are caused by sharp objects, such as knives or broken glass. However, it is even more critical in abrasion injuries, in which the skin’s outer layers have been scraped away by abrasion against a rough object, such as when elbows and arms scrape against pavement during a skateboard fall. If the abrasion occurred on a surface that contains loose materials, the wound is likely to be contaminated with gravel, dirt, grass, and other foreign substances. Each foreign object remaining may serve as a source of infection and should be removed.

The wound can be washed with tap water under enough pressure to thoroughly cleanse the wound of foreign materials. Wound Wash Saline is a pressurized sterile 0.9% sodium chloride product that can accomplish this cleansing for minor wounds.

Cold Sore Symptoms

• Some patients have a “prodrome,” which is when certain symptoms occur before the actual sores appear. The prodrome to herpes infections typically involves a burning or tingling sensation that precedes the appearance of blisters by a few hours or a day or two. As the cold sore forms, the area may become reddened and develop small fluid-filled blisters. Several of these small blisters may even come together and form one large blister. Cold sores are mildly painful.
• When cold sores recur, the blisters dry up rapidly and leave scabs that last anywhere from a day to several days, depending on the severity of the infection.

Frostbite is, literally, frozen body tissue — usually skin but sometimes deeper — and must be handled carefully to prevent permanent tissue damage.

Kids are at greater risk for frostbite than adults, both because they lose heat from their skin more rapidly than adults and because they may be reluctant to leave their winter fun to go inside and warm up.

You can help prevent frostbite in cold weather by dressing kids in layers, making sure they come indoors at regular intervals, and watching for frostnip, frostbite’s early warning signal.

Frostnip

Frostnip usually affects areas that are exposed to the cold, such as the cheeks, nose, ears, fingers, and toes, leaving them red and numb or tingly. Frostnip can be treated at home.

What to Do:

• Bring your child indoors immediately.
• Remove all wet clothing. Wet clothes draw heat from the body.
• Immerse chilled body parts in warm (not hot) water for 20 to 30 minutes until all sensation returns.
• Don’t let your child control the water temperature during rewarming. Numb hands won’t feel the heat and can be severely burned by water that is too hot.
• Call your doctor if sensation does not return or there are signs of frostbite.

Frostbite

Frostbite is characterized by white, waxy skin that feels numb and hard. It requires immediate emergency medical attention.

About Concussions

The brain is made of soft tissue and is cushioned by spinal fluid. It is encased in the hard, protective skull. The brain can move around inside the skull and even bang against it. If the brain does bang against the skull — for example, if a child hits his or her head on the sidewalk — the brain can get bruised, blood vessels can be torn, and the nerves inside the brain can be injured. These injuries can lead to a concussion, which is the temporary loss of brain function.

There are three different types, or grades, of concussions. The severity of a concussion determines the length of time needed before a player can safely return to sports activities:

• Grade 1 concussions involve no loss of consciousness and cause a temporary change in mental state, like confusion, disorientation, and trouble focusing, which resolves within about 15 minutes.
• Grade 2 concussions are similar but the change in mental state lasts longer than 15 minutes.
• Grade 3 concussions include a loss of consciousness, regardless of how long they last.

Head injuries that result in concussions can be caused by car, bike, and motorcycle accidents; falls; assaults; and contact sports (football, ice hockey, volleyball, lacrosse, basketball, wrestling, field hockey, rugby, soccer, softball, baseball, etc.).

When A Child Needs Help

When a child is choking, it means that an object — usually food or a toy — is lodged in the trachea (the airway) and is keeping air from flowing normally into or out of the lungs.

The trachea is usually protected by a small flap of cartilage called theepiglottis. The trachea and the esophagus share an opening at the back of the throat, and the epiglottis acts like a lid, snapping shut over the trachea each time a person swallows. It allows food to pass down the esophagus and prevents it from going down the trachea.

But every once in a while, the epiglottis doesn’t close fast enough and an object can slip into the trachea. This is what happens when something goes “down the wrong pipe.”

Most of the time, the food or object only partially blocks the trachea and it’s likely that it will be coughed up and that breathing will be restored easily. A child who seems to be choking and coughing but is still able to breathe and talk probably will recover unassisted. It can be uncomfortable and upsetting, but the child is generally fine after a few seconds.

Sometimes, though, an object can get into the trachea and completely block the airway. If airflow into and out of the lungs is blocked, and the brain is deprived of oxygen, choking can become a life-threatening emergency.

A child may be choking and need help right away if he or she:

• is unable to breathe
• is gasping or wheezing
• is unable to talk, cry, or make noise
• turns blue
• grabs at his or her throat or waves arms
• appears panicked

In those cases, immediately start abdominal thrusts  the standard rescue procedure for choking, if you’ve been trained to do it properly.

Choose from Standard / Child Care  / Emergency First Aid & CPR / AED

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First Aid for Anaphylaxis

Anaphylaxis First Aid: Recognize Anaphylaxis

© A.D.A.M.

Kelowna Jan 10.2010 – Kamloops Jan 09.2010

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A disposable BVM Resuscitator

A bag valve mask (also known as a BVM or Ambu bag) is a hand-held device used to provide positive pressure ventilation to a patient who is not breathing or who is breathing inadequately. The device is a normal part of a resuscitation kit for trained professional, such as ambulance crew. The BVM is frequently used in hospitals, and is an essential part of a crash cart. The device is used extensively in the operating room to ventilate an anaesthetised patient in the minutes before a mechanical ventilator is attached. The device is self-filling with air, although additional oxygen (O₂) can be added.

Use of the BVM to ventilate a patient is frequently called “bagging” the patient.^[1] Bagging is regularly necessary in medical emergencies when the patient’s breathing is insufficient (respiratory failure) or has ceased completely (respiratory arrest). The BVM resuscitator is used in order to manually provide mechanical ventilation in preference to mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (either direct or through an adjunct such as a pocket mask).

The BVM directs the gas inside it via a one-way valve when compressed by a rescuer; the gas is then delivered through a mask and into the patient’s trachea, bronchus and into thelungs. In order to be effective, a bag valve mask must deliver between 500 and 800 milliliters of air to the patient’s lungs, but if oxygen is provided through the tubing and if the patient’s chest rises with each inhalation (indicating that adequate amounts of air are reaching the lungs), 400 to 600 ml may still be adequate.^[1] Squeezing the bag once every 5 seconds for an adult or once every 3 seconds for an infant or child provides an adequate respiratory rate (12 respirations per minute in an adult and 20 per minute in a child or infant).^[3]

Professional rescuers are taught to ensure that the mask portion of the BVM is properly sealed around the patient’s face (that is, to ensure proper “mask seal”); otherwise, air escapes from the mask and is not pushed into the lungs. In order to maintain this protocol, some protocols use a method of ventilation involving two rescuers: one rescuer to hold the mask to the patient’s face with both hands and ensure a mask seal, while the other squeezes the bag.^[4] However, as most ambulances have only two members of crew, the other crew member is likely to be doing compressions in the case of CPR, or may be performing other skills such as cannulation. In this case, or if no other options are available, the BVM can also be operated by a single rescuer who holds the mask to the patient’s face with one hand, in the anaesthetists grip, and squeezes the bag with the other.

When using a BVM, as with other methods of positive pressure ventilation, there is a risk of over-inflating the lungs. This can lead to pressure damage to the lungs themselves, and can also cause air to enter the stomach, causing gastric distention which can make it more difficult to inflate the lungs and which can cause the patient to vomit. This can be avoided by care on behalf of the rescuer. Alternatively, some models of BVM (usually Paediatric) are fitted with a valve which prevents over inflation, by venting the pressure when a pre-set pressure is reached. Nevertheless, cricoid pressure should be applied whenever possible until the patient is intubated or until ventilations have ceased.

An endotracheal tube (ETT) can be inserted by a trained practitioner and can substitute for the mask portion of the BVM. This provides a more secure fit and is easier to manage during emergency transport, since the ET tube is sealed with an inflatable cuff in the trachea, so that any regurgitation cannot enter the lungs. Such material can severely damage the lung tissue, and in the absence of an ET tube, could choke the patient by obstructing the airway. Inhalation of stomach contents can be fatal; the after effects can cause Mendelson’s syndrome or aspiration pneumonia.

Some rescuers may also choose to use a different form of resuscitation adjunt, such as an oropharyngeal airway or Laryngeal mask airway, which would be inserted and then used with the BVM.

In a hospital, long-term mechanical ventilation is provided by using more complex devices such as an intensive care ventilator, rather than by a BVM, which requires at least one person to operate it constantly.

A flow-restricted, oxygen-powered ventilation device (FROPVD) is similar to a BVM in that oxygen is pushed through a mask into the patient’s lungs, but unlike a BVM, in the FROPVD the pressure needed to push air into the patient’s lungs is generated by oxygen via a pressure regulator from a cylinder rather than by squeezing a bag.